As many have noted, DC rolled out its brand spanking new website yesterday, with a whole new look, new logo and new commenting system. Among the many improvements, new sections for major characters, and subsections for videos, live social media updating and the like. (What, no Pinterest?) The site seems to be the work of the West Coast branding/web team, and although useful and streamlined, it does match the corporate vibe of a lot of DC rollouts of late.

Although the old message board—hope of a lifetime’s worth of conspiracy theories and threats never to read DC comics again—is dunzo, comments are back, via the medium of Facebook. And rather amusingly, DC has also rolled out a huge comics web-wide advertising campaign with images such as this:
And here, perhaps, the branding team betrays a tiny lack of familiarity with the DC audience. For they surely need no advertising campaign to urge them to “interact, react and respond.” They seem to do that fine all on their own. In fact, the old blog comments were pulled after fans reacted and interacted a little too zealously.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the historically “candid” DC fans react to using the “real name” Facebook commenting system.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

The old site was a bit long in the tooth to be sure, but the new one is a bit cluttered and disorganized for my taste. The new Source is especially unattractive, as they ditched the extended blog-crawl style I prefer for bumpers and story headers.

Probably will get a better idea of what it will look like after today when they release more “news” (Wednesdays are generally slow news days for DC, because hey, go read some comics eh?) and I can get an idea of how it will work. As for now? Not a huge fan, but it at least looks more like a proper 2012 website.

The boards will be missed though. Only discovered it…well, once DC announced they were going away. But there were some genuine old-fashioned impassioned interneting going on in there, and has been A-grade entertainment for the last week or so.

Design looks great but it’s not nearly as functional as it could be. Comics and graphic novels are poorly organized, which was something the old site was really good at. I’m glad to see character pages but they could be utilized better and feature previews of books, and a comprehensive listing of graphic novels and related DC Direct merchandise.

I think the integration of comments on each page is smart, especially on individual comics pages.

I used to be able to enter a search, and then be able to filter the results by comics, books, merchandise…

That is no longer possible.

Try searching [Watchmen]. How many pages do you have to scan before you find a copy of the graphic novel?

Oh, I found it… I have to go into the COMICS section first, then try a search. I can’t limit the search from the homepage. How silly of me…

Why so much empty white space between the list and the bottom of the page? Ten more searches could be displayed in that space.

Oh, and that link on the home page that says “All Graphic Novels”? It redirects to the COMICS page.

The newer graphic novels do not have ISBNs listed. (Some of the older ones as well, like All-Star Superman.)

No creators listed on many of the graphic novels. But I do like that you can click on a name and get a listing of titles!

Also no synopsis.
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When I saw “Buy Print”, I thought DC had a poster shop, just like Marvel! Nope, it means “buy a paper copy”.

That “Buy Print” button? It directs one to the Comic Shop Locator. Why not have buttons which link to various websites? Dark Horse links to TFAW.com. DC could partner with Random House (which sells it’s own books, as well as listing ten online retailers where items can be found). Or use WBShop.
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No mention of e-books on the website. Just one PR about Vertigo’s first e-book title when I search.
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Hey look! Underneath the comics listings, there’s a section titled “Comments”!

What? You say DC is treating their website like their offices, only letting people visit who are allowed?

Maybe they’ll post reviews there, links to other websites?
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No social network “share now” buttons on the comics or graphic novel pages. Guess I need to cut-and-paste the URL if I want to tell how cool DC Comics is…
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Many links from older listings do not work.
(SUPERMAN #650)
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Comics listings go back to 2004. The old website did not seem to do this.
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No PDF previews?
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Twitter feeds are useless. It’s like coming in on the middle of the conversation, and you don’t know what people are talking about. Instead, DC should just post THEIR tweets, and then include a button so people can go to Twitter to read the complete thread.
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New Vertigo titles?http://www.vertigocomics.com/comics
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DC, I miss the short origin stories from 52 for each character. Could you include those once more, or perhaps a free digital comic from “Secret Origins”. And a free comic from an older series. Those stories will help readers discover new characters, and you can judge interest on how often those free copies are read!
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Hey, how about a “suggested reading” list for each character biography, for newbies! Of course, offer previews!

(Geez… There’s one Batgirl title on the “Related Content” slider underneath the Batgirl character page! And no, it’s not “Killing Joke”.)
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TOTALLY fits with the NewDC: more glorification for Jim Lee and Geoff Johns… TOTAL emphasis on that “we GOTTA be in with the cool kids and be ALL ABOUT Facebook and Twitter!!!”

Gee… maybe if they spent a little less time worrying about hashtags and likes, then maybe they could, oh, CONCENTRATE MORE ON PUTTING OUT SOME DECENT QUALITY COLLECTED EDITIONS or… whatever! Like the comment says, it’s WAY more about making sure the characters are in 90sImageComics-approved artwork and licensing to movies and video games. DC “Comics” is certainly gone… 75 years flushed down the toilet. Thanks Diane and Jim and Geoff and Dan. Good work.

It doesn’t look good unless it is in the upper right-hand corner of whatever I’m looking at. I didn’t love the last logo, but at least it looked cool when floating on a TV screen while watching one of their animated movies. This one just looks a bit tired and literary.

I agree, the new DC site is so much more disorganized and filled with crap. I am one of those who goes there to check solicitations, but now it is so hard to do so quickly enough to make it worthwhile. Easy to do before, but now not worth the time.